The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hustling for Every Little Thing

Real power is the power to humiliate. Humiliation requires the participation of the victim. Participation in humiliation is what allows coercive society to exist. Armies, religions, prisons are examples notable not for their differences from what is ‘normal’, but rather for the norms they make obvious. To say it plainly: to be human is to be humiliated, including those who are in power, who are mostly men.

Children are humiliated as a matter of cultural routine. If they accustom themselves to it, they develop into good citizens. If they don’t, the intensity of humiliation is progressively increased. They become vagrants, addicts, and inmates... or prison guards. If they are women, there are career opportunities in the many mansions of the sex industry.

For the most humiliated, life is a constant hustle. To hustle is to humiliate oneself intentionally in order to survive. Hustling is the main form of participation in humiliation that takes place throughout society. But it is only practised at a professional level by those typically designated as criminal. Criminality is illegal hustling. It can look like haplessness, but really it’s just a transient position on the learning curve.

For the criminal, the world is not composed of other individuals but of one monolithic AUTHORITY which must be hustled against (or, more properly, with). AUTHORITY is simply ‘there.’ Most obviously in the quaintly named ‘justice system,’ but also in the increasingly trivial rules, procedures and prohibitions one becomes subject to on the slide into abyssal humiliation. There’s also one’s fellow hustlers to contend with, whose goal is to stay one rung above you on the ladder. Humiliation, like wealth, is always a relative thing.

Criminal hustling uses enormous amounts of energy. One’s competitive edge is difficult to maintain. Prison can be a welcome respite. Its humiliations are known and largely impersonal. Its hustles are relatively simple and low energy. In an environment of rigid routine, hustles can be planned and executed methodically. No need to ad lib or take inordinate risks. In prison, patience becomes a cardinal virtue.

View all my reviews